Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Psalm 22:1-2 – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?  O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but find no rest. (NRSV)

As we tend to our hearts on this “Good” Friday, we may come to realize that we practice the reflection of this day in order to be prepared for the moments in our lives that arrive with the despair and forsakenness of Good Friday, but without any warning. This psalm that Jesus cried out from the cross reminds us that even when we feel most alone, we are not.  Even as his soul filled with despair, he turned to his faith, crying out the words of his ancestors, thus expressing both his pain but also his underlying knowledge that people had been here before and discovered that they were not, in fact, abandoned.

As I was driving home from our Holy Week Service last night, I was admiring the slightly past full moon that was peeking through the clouds.  And then I realized that even though the night on Gethsemane must have been a dark night of the soul, Jesus would also have been looking at a full moon, because it was Passover, and Passover’s date is determined by the moon’s cycle.

I don’t know if that moon brought Jesus any comfort, but for some reason, thinking it might have brought me comfort.  There may be nights when we feel no one hears our cries but the moon, and we find no rest.  But there is the moon, and the moon is always a reminder of the sun.  And the sun is always a reminder of the dawn.  And the dawn is always a reminder that a new day will always come.

So as we sit in the darkness of this day, when scripture tells us the sun was blotted out from noon till three, let us consider all the sources of light and love that remind us that hope is real.  As we struggle with the frailties and pain of our human bodies, let us recall that Christ knows our pain from the inside out and makes the journey alongside us through all our years.  As we move through a world that is violent and broken, let us remember God’s power to put things back together again.